


The Princess and the Falcon

by Kit2000andAnna



Category: Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs (2019)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Love, Magic, Wizards, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit2000andAnna/pseuds/Kit2000andAnna
Summary: The winner of a knight-tournament will become Princess Snow White's husband. She is depressed and wants to calm down. In the forest she finds a wounded falcon and starts to take care of it. Little does she know that the falcon will turn her world upside down.An AU Fairytale.
Relationships: Prince Merlin/Snow White
Comments: 5
Kudos: 120





	The Princess and the Falcon

**The Princess and the Falcon**

  
Once upon a time there lived a princess. She was beautiful, smart and kind-hearted, but many people liked to laugh behind her back about her weight. The royal girl wasn’t a slender type and deep in her heart she suffered about her zaftig figure.

One day she learnt that her father – King White – decided to set up a knight-tournament on her 18th birthday and marry her away to a winner. The White Kingdom was famous for its glory and prosperity. There were lots of nobles and royalty, who wanted to get a chance to take the White Kingdom’s brilliance, even if it was just a small piece. The wise ruler had other plans about his homeland. He understood that he was getting older and the only heiress of everything he had was his dear and beloved daughter Snow White. She was the most beautiful girl in the father’s eyes, but there weren’t so many admirers of her appearance among young princes. King White blamed himself for giving his genes to the princess, as she looked like him so much. He wished the best for his daughter and the only way to marry her away to a good and noble man was setting up the knight-tournament and meet its winner as a sign of fate and as Snow White’s husband-to-be.

But of course the princess didn’t know her father’s soul tortures. She got so distressed after hearing the news about the tournament, that she rode away to a forest to calm down a little and get used to her father’s order. It was beyond unfair in her opinion. She wished to marry a man she would love, but her destiny was making her to get married by force.

  
In the forest the maiden found a wounded falcon. The princess’s heart tightened upon seeing the mighty bird lying with deep and severe wounds in an unconscious state. There was a lake not far from the place and Snow White (that was the princess’s name) poured some water in a kettle and boiled it. She had some herbs in her first aid kit, so she cleared up the falcon’s wounds and put the herbs on them to kill the infection. The maiden didn’t have any bandages with her, so she ripped her under-skirt of her beautiful dress into long stripes and after treating the bird’s wounds, she bandaged them neatly and carefully. She covered the poor thing with her travelling cloak and sat by its side. Snow White spent the whole night taking care of the sleeping falcon and only in the early morning it opened its dark brown eyes.

  
Snow White was afraid of the wild bird’s reaction, but to her great surprise, it didn’t show any signs of aggression. On the contrary, it was calm and friendly and it gave her an opportunity to examine the wounds. The girl was glad to see that the blood had stopped. The inflammation had subsided too.

  
The princess and the falcon became friends. Snow White visited her pet every day, bringing fresh food from the castle. The bird was still too weak and it couldn’t hunt for food. The maiden loved stroking its smooth feathers. She felt very comfortable in the falcon’s company and it seemed as if her friend could understand everything without words. She had never met such understanding in her whole life. And so she told her friend the sad story of her life, about how her father didn’t want to give her the freedom to choose a fiancé, but promised her as a reward to a winner of a knight-tournament.

  
“In a month, the very day of my birthday, I will be forced to marry the champion of a stupid tournament.”

  
Great misery reflected in the falcon’s eyes when she told her story. The bird hopped on her lap and the princess hugged it carefully, taking it in her arms and pressing the bird’s head to her soft and pillowy breasts. The maiden and the falcon were very close on a spiritual level. They could understand each other without any words.

  
One day Snow White came by horse to visit her friend. She was dressed in a travelling clothes and she looked disappointed. The maiden said that they had to hurry and leave that place.

  
“We got information that a wild beast appeared in these lands and it attacks people. My father formed a special squad to find the beast and kill it. But I know that’s it’s not you, my dear falcon!”

  
She said that she believed her friend and it must have been another wild creature. But if people would see a wild falcon they would think that it was it, which had attacked those innocent people and they would try to kill it in order to eliminate the danger. The kind princess couldn’t let it happen. She promised her falcon that she would take it away to a safer place.

  
Before the ride, the royal girl decided to refill her flask. She asked the bird to wait for her by the horse until she came back.

  
The maiden was too occupied to feel an upcoming danger, when a big and hungry wolf came out from the bushes and got ready to attack her. Only when the wolf barked and scowled at her, Snow White felt the terrifying feeling of an inevitable death.

  
She was in a terrible situation. The only weapon she had with her was her traveling dagger. She threw it at the giant wolf and wounded its paw, but it wasn’t enough to stop the beast. On the contrary, the animal got even more aggressive and it prepared for the final attack.

  
But suddenly the falcon appeared out of nowhere and spread its large wings in front of the princess, blocking the wolf’s way towards her. The bird emitted a fighting cry and thrust its sharp claws into the beast’s muzzle with powerful blow, and it caused the intruder to jump away. But it wasn’t enough to make it surrender. The mortal combat began. The falcon fought for Snow White using all its strength. Its wounds were still not completely healed but it didn’t prevent the bird from being a protector. The falcon pecked the wolf with his mighty beak in the head and tore the animal’s throat apart with his sharp claws. The battle ended, when the wild beast died in agony.

  
Snow White was in great shock. She couldn’t stand on her feet as her whole body was trembling after a horrific accident. The falcon walked up to the girl slowly and looked at her in great concern. The princess grabbed the bird in her arms and lifted it up to her face only to look straight at its blood-stained muzzle.

  
“You have saved my life. Thank you, my brave falcon. I owe you. You are very dear to me and I will never let anyone harm you,” and with those words Snow White kissed the bird’s dirty beak with all the feelings she had for her dear friend. But the next moment the maiden felt dizzy and she started to faint. With a corner of her sub- consciousness she noticed a golden light that embraced the bird, and the next second the falcon vanished out of her hands and a handsome young man appeared in her arms. She had never seen him before, but she could perfectly feel how tight his embrace was and how concerned his face looked just before her mind went dark and she lost her consciousness.

  
After the girl’s kiss the falcon turned into a prince. He was fully dressed in clean clothes, as if he had just came from a ball. The magic had healed all his wounds and cleaned all the blood stains from his body and face. The young man didn’t understand it at first that he turned into a human again. Right now he was too worried about his kind friend, who got limp in his arms and started to fall from his embrace. He held the princess’s falling body tighter, never letting her go from his arms. He stroked her pale cheek tenderly and then placed a chaste kiss on her slightly opened rosy lips with all the romantic emotions his heart felt for the unusual princess. The prince was about to find a way to wake her up, but a sound of a coming group of people made him flinch.

  
The prince couldn’t take the princess with him. There was no time to think of a way to carry her to the horse. He thought highly of himself and knew that he was a strong man, but the girl he fell for wasn’t an ordinary beauty, whose weight was of one of a feather. His princess was the most beautiful girl, and her body weighted like a chest of treasure. No matter how hard it was for him to leave her now, he had no other choice right now.

The prince decided to leave her lying on the grass, so that people could find and help her. He laid her gently on a green carpet and removed his ring. He took her hand in his and put the ring on her wedding finger. By doing so he gave her a promise to come back and meet her again. He would win the knight-tournament and conquer her heart. Because she became the most precious person to the prince. He fell in love with the girl with all his heart and soul. And now he couldn’t imagine his life without her.

  
The royal heir climbed the maiden’s horse and rode away to his kingdom only to get all his duties done and come back in full preparation for the upcoming tournament. He would definitely become the winner and meet his fiancée.

It had been several weeks since the day the royal soldiers found princess Snow White in the forest. People thought that it must have been her, who killed the dangerous wolf. The girl kept on saying that it wasn’t her doing, but no one believed her. Everyone considered her being a national hero.

  
Meanwhile, the princess had the same dream over and over again. It was about her falcon, which suddenly turned into a young man. She thought that she was losing her mind slowly but surely. She missed her precious friend a lot and couldn’t find place due to separation. She started to lose weight and suffer from insomnia. She was exhausted to no limits. King White was worried about his daughter’s health. At first he wanted to cancel the tournament, but then he decided against it. He wanted his Snow White to get a distraction from her misery and have some fun. And the knight-tournament was exactly what she needed in the king’s opinion. 

  
The last day of the tournament had finally come. Lots of princes and noblemen attended the event to fight for the princess’s heart and for her prosperous inheritance. But only the strongest ones made it to the 3rd day of the competition and they had to fight in full strength. The battle was very spectacular and thrilling, but in the end a young prince from a famous Falcon Kingdom won the first award. His battle skills impressed King White a lot. He had never seen anyone of such a young age to fight that skillfully and brilliantly, not to mention that the winner could use magic that summoned thunder and lightning. The king declared Prince Merlin to be the champion and the official fiancé to his daughter. King White asked his heiress to put a wreath of a winner on the prince’s head. And the princess did what she had been told emotionlessly. She didn’t care, she couldn’t force her heart to love her fiancé. The girl put the wreath on the man’s head indifferently as if she was some kind of a doll.

  
The prince’s heart barely tore apart, when he saw the princess’s lifeless eyes and the state she was in. His beloved maiden was like an absolutely another person. She lost lots of weight and become even prettier than before, but her cheeks were so pale that she reminded of a lifeless china doll. Her face looked so exhausted that it seemed that she would faint any minute. Prince Merlin got scared for her well-being.

  
He stood on his knee before her and let her put the crown of a winner on his head. Then he took her hand and kissed it tenderly and admirably. The girl didn’t expect such behavior from him, but he just stood up and without any other word he walked her to the throne, where she had been sitting before.

  
“I beg you a pardon milady, but I assume that my presence made you weary.”

  
The king supported the prince’s words and let his daughter go to her chambers. The monarch liked the way the prince expressed care towards his daughter. He would become a good husband to her.

  
After a luxury banquet, the ruler asked his future son-in-law to go to his cabinet. There the old man shared his fears about his daughter’s health. He couldn’t understand what was happening to her. She was melting away like a candle. And also he was blaming himself for setting up that tournament for her hand. It was too rushed. She couldn’t marry anyone in such horrible condition.

  
The prince was about to ask the king not to cancel his and princess’s wedding, but his intentions were interrupted by a royal doctor, who entered the cabinet. The doctor informed that the princess was suffering from severe fever and the medicine couldn’t help her. 

  
Both royal men rushed to the princess’s chambers only to find her in the bed unconscious. When Merlin saw his beloved girl by the death’s door, he almost lost his sanity from sorrow. The king ordered everyone to leave the room, letting only the prince to stay. The king was on the edge of despair of losing his precious heiress, when the prince remembered about a secret potion his father had given him before Merlin set off for a knight-tournament. The old monarch said that the potion had been passing from king to king in the Falcon’s dynasty, and now there was little of the potion left, so the prince had to use it only in the last resort. He took a medallion out of his shirt and found a little bottle in it. There was some golden liquid inside. The young man walked to the princess’s bed and after taking the liquid into his mouth, he bent down above the sleeping beauty and pressed his lips to the girl’s pale ones, pouring the potion inside her mouth through that forbidden kiss he had given her.

  
The king was utterly surprised and irritated, but the prince hurried to calm him down by telling him that it was the best way to give the princess the medicine. After hard musings, King White decided to give Prince Merlin some privacy with his daughter. It was an uneasy decision, but the old man understood that there was no one who could save his heiress but this young man, who would become her husband in the nearest future.

  
Prince Merlin was very grateful to the monarch for understanding. When he was left alone in the room, he sat on the edge of Snow White’s bed and took her hot hand in his. He brought it to his lips and left a tender kiss on each of her fingers. She had saved him from death with her kindness, and now he longed to save her life. He prayed with all his heart for her recovery, and a miracle had finally happened. The princess started to come to her senses.

  
The maiden opened her eyes slowly and looked at the young man who was holding her by the hand. Judging by her expression, the prince understood that she was utterly taken aback to see him.

  
“Don’t you recognize me at all?” Merlin asked in a sad tone.

  
The girl shook her head in negation slowly.

  
“You are wearing a ring on your necklace. That ring has a symbol of my kingdom,” the prince uttered quietly, looking at the very golden object on her neck, which had an engraved coat of arms of a falcon.

  
Snow White’s eyes widened in bewilderment. She really wore a necklace and a ring, which she unexpectedly had found on her finger the day she had been rescued in the forest.

  
“I was the one, who put it on your finger as a proof and a sign of promise that I would come back to meet you again.”

  
“It can’t be true!” exclaimed the princess and sat abruptly on her bed, staring at the man with wide eyes. The young man took a little piece of her under-skirt out of his pocket and showed it to her to prove his words. The maiden touched the soft white fabric with the tips of her long beautiful fingers. She remembered it right away. She had used that stripe to bandage the falcon’s wounds in the past.

  
“But how can it be possible? Does it mean that the falcon and you are a single whole?” she asked in curiosity, yet her voice sounded worried.

  
The prince looked at her with tenderness in his deep brown eyes and nodded softly in a sign of agreement.

  
“My kingdom is famous for its magic. I am a rightful descendant of my well-known ancestors-wizards. When I turned 20 years old, our kingdom had been attacked by a powerful sorceress Regina after I refused to marry her. She threatened me to wipe my family off the face of the earth if I wouldn’t obey her, so I had to fight her in order to save my homeland. After a severe battle I defeated her, but before her death Regina put a spell on me and turned me into a bird, wishing me to suffer for the rest of my life. The wounds I got during the battle worsened and they caused me an unbearable pain. And when I lost the last hope and thought that my end was about to come, you appeared before my eyes like a pure ray of the sun, who cured my damaged body and soul,” with those words he extended his hand and stroked Snow White’s cheek in great adoration and trepidation.

  
His soft touch made the girl blush slightly, but she didn’t avert her careful eyes from his manly face. She just kept on looking at him, while she couldn’t get enough of admiring his breathtakingly brown eyes, which were the same as her friend falcon had. Now she knew for sure, that her heart didn’t fail her, when she felt something familiar and dear towards that mysterious knight at the tournament. Thanks to him, Snow White started to come to life and the misery began fading away from her heart.

  
“Did you come for me?” the beauty asked, not believing in the happening.

  
“Yes. After you broke the spell, I got a chance to be with you forever. I fell in love with you while being a bird, my lovely princess. But I wasn’t a human back then and I couldn’t even dare to dream about you. But after turning into a man again, I decided to win the tournament and conquer your heart. I love you, my sweet princess, and I can’t imagine my life without you. Being away from you tortures my heart and soul,” Merlin said, expressing everything he felt for Snow White through his words.

  
The girl felt so happy and loved, when his strong and sincere aura embraced her softly. It was still hard to believe that her beloved falcon was a prince. She missed her friend so much that it was taking her vital strength away with every passing second.

  
Snow White threw herself in the prince’s arms, to his great surprise, and hugged him tightly and affectingly, showing the power of her feelings towards him.

  
She buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling a unique scent of his dark silky hair. 

  
“I love you too, my dear falcon,” she whispered in his ear.

“My name is Merlin, by the way,” the young man embraced his fiancée in return with a chuckle.

They were utterly happy right now. Prince Merlin made a proposal to his beloved maiden and she agreed right away. She wouldn’t stand it to get separated from him ever again.

“I just can’t believe that you developed feelings for me, when I was still as big as a mountain,” the royal girl uttered in disbelief, still holding her prince in her now slender arms.

“I have to confess that I used to be a smug jerk before the whole story with Regina happened. She was a beautiful woman, any man could easily fall a victim of her charms. But her heart was evil. And you are a complete opposite of her. Even with your unusual grand beauty you emitted so much light and kindness. When I first saw you in that forest, my first thought was about how shiny and pure your eyes were. You were so beautiful back then both inside and out. I will always be grateful to Heavens for giving me the opportunity to meet you, even if it happened under such unpleasant circumstances.”

While telling her his story the prince put a wedding ring on her finger and kissed her lips emotionally and sensually. They continued kissing each other for a long time, not daring to break their special and newly-gained bond just yet. Snow White sensed as live started to fill her very being. She desired to live again so much. The rest of the night the couple in love spent lying in the princess’s bed while embracing each other tenderly. They didn’t talk much, it wasn’t necessary. Prince Merlin stroked his beloved girl’s hair admiringly. Their happiness consisted of being together and close to each other. They understood each other without words, just as before.

  
In the morning Snow White begged her father to marry her away to Prince Merlin. King White was in great shock by the changes in her mood. His daughter, who had been refusing to eat and barely had any strength to breathe just the previous day, didn’t want to wait any day longer. She desired to marry the prince here and now. So, the king, after scratching his balding head in astonishment, ordered to hold the wedding ceremony the next morning.

The princess had the most fabulous wedding-gown in the world. And no one dared to whisper behind her back with ill jokes about her appearance anymore. Snow White radiated beauty and elegance. Yes, she lost weight drastically because of stress caused by a man. And now she shone admirably because of the same man.

Her prince.

Her Merlin, who fell in love with her not for her looks and figure, but for her honest character and kind heart.

  
After the wedding, Merlin took his lovely queen on the board of his magical flying ship and they soared towards his kingdom, where they lived a long and happy life.

  
Queen Snow White loved to tell her children a legend about a prince-falcon as a fairytale in the evenings. And the little heirs didn’t even suspect that the wonderful and magical legend was their parents’ true love story. But it didn’t matter for the time being. Snow White and Merlin would definitely open the secret, hidden behind that mysterious legend to them later. When the right time comes…

  
**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> A/N in the legends the wise and old wizard Merlin is usually compared to a falcon. He could turn into that bird too.


End file.
